Eli Tomac (Photography by Steve Cox
Today was press day for the opening round of the 2015 Lucas Oil/AMA Pro Motocross Championship, and with all the things to talk about, we’ll just break it down by motorcycle brand, in alphabetical order to make it easier.
Cole Seely
The factory Honda rig was missing the 41 machine belonging to Trey Canard. Canard is getting stronger following his Supercross injury, but isn’t quite ready to get back to the races. However, his teammate Cole Seely is ready to go and is excited about his first time ever racing a 450 outdoors, saying that he thinks racing the 450 outdoors will actually suit his style a lot better than racing 250s did over the last half-decade or so.
And then there’s GEICO Honda’s Eli Tomac who is entering his second season of 450cc MX, but he missed the first third of the 2014 series with an injury, and he’s healthy heading into Hangtown this Saturday. Tomac flies at Hangtown—he won his first-ever AMA National here, in his first try, in 2010.
HUSQVARNA
Jason Anderson
The Rockstar Energy Husqvarna team was much lighter on press day than it will be on race day. Today, it was just Jason Anderson on his 450, but he’ll be joined Saturday by Christophe Pourcel as well as his 250cc teammates. Anderson looked strong and was among the 450cc racers to go for the new 150-foot jump on the Hangtown track.
KAWASAKI
Adam Cianciarulo
There were two very notable returns on press day at Hangtown for Kawasaki: Wil Hahn and Adam Cianciarulo. Hahn looked smooth in preparation for his first season of 450cc MX racing, and Cianciarulo is making his much-anticipated 250cc pro MX debut this Saturday. Both missed the entire supercross series due to injury.
KTM
Ryan Dungey
The new 450 SX champ, Ryan Dungey, looked as solid as you’d expect at press day, and the 2010 and 2012 450cc MX champ said he feels confident as we head into the MX Nationals. His 250cc teammate Marvin Musquin plans to carry success over from Supercross. The two-time world MX champ has one last chance at the 250cc MX title.
The TLD/Lucas Oil KTM team saw a new face on press day, with Mitch Oldenburg hitting the track on the number-52 KTM after racing supercross on Yamahas.
Blake Baggett
Even though Yoshimura Suzuki’s James Stewart was denied his appeal for his drug-testing suspension, his teammate Blake Baggett is ready to take this series on. The former 250cc National Champion is looking forward to racing the big bike outdoors, and he’s known for his ability to choose creative lines.
“I think it’s going to come into play, for sure,” Baggett said of his line choices. “I think you can even do some more choices in the lines, because it’s so big and so heavy that if you get out of the bumps you’ll save a lot of energy. So I think line choice will be key. As long as they rip it deep and it’s got a lot of lines, it’ll be good. So we’ll just have to wait and see how the track plays out and go from there. It’s never easy, so just going to feel it out. It’s going to be the first two, 30-minute moto races for me, ever on the big bike. You can practice as much as you want, but it’s not the same as racing.”
As for where the racing is going to put the 138-pound 450 factory pilot, he says he just wants to feel things out at first.
“Definitely excited to see where I’m at, then of course go from there and try to build off of it,” Baggett said. “But the goal is to hit all 24 motos healthy and get a solid season. It’s an unknown still. Just like supercross was unknown, outdoors is the same. So basically just going to take this first round, give it my all, and see where we end up.”
The defending 450cc National MX champion, RCH Suzuki’s Ken Roczen, was a no-show on press day, electing to rest up from his injuries to be as prepared as he can be for the opening round on Saturday, but his teammate Broc Tickle said he feels better than he’s ever felt heading into a season of 450cc outdoor racing, so he should be a factor.
YAMAHA
Jeremy Martin
And finally, there’s Yamaha, the anticipated powerhouse in the 250cc class. Defending 250cc National MX champ Jeremy Martin sat out the supercross finale with a hand injury he got while mountain-biking, but it’s doing a lot better, and he says it doesn’t bother him anymore while he’s on the bike. He also said that, even though he’s the defending champ, he thinks the pressure is off of him and on the newly crowned SX-champs, teammate Cooper Webb and KTM’s Musquin, since those two combined to lose a total of four races during the 2015 SX series.
Webb, though, is going to be affected somewhat by the ankle he sprained badly at the Las Vegas Supercross, but we won’t know how bad until the motos are run on Saturday. He looked good on the track today, but they were short stints.
Their teammates Aaron Plessinger and Anthony Rodriquez are looking forward to the outdoors, too, and Plessinger seems to think he should be even stronger outdoors than he was indoors.
All three 450cc racers on the AutoTrader.com/JGR/Toyota Yamaha team are on-hand for Hangtown, with full-time racers Justin Barcia and Weston Peick being joined for the weekend by part-time team racer Phil Nicoletti. Peick in particular says he’s really looking forward to the outdoors, where he believes his bulldog nature and fitness will come into play much more so than they did during the 2015 supercross series.
